But then her courage forsook her, and, flinging herself on the goat, she burst into tears.
"I believe you had better keep the goat," faltered Oyvind, looking away.
"Make haste, now!" said her grandfather, from the hill; and Marit got up and walked, with hesitating feet, upward.
"You have forgotten your garter," Oyvind shouted after her. She turned and bestowed a glance, first on the garter, then on him. Finally she formed a great resolve, and replied, in a choked voice, "You may keep it."
He walked up to her, took her by the hand, and said, "I thank you!"
"Oh, there is nothing to thank me for," she answered, and, drawing a piteous sigh, went on.
Oyvind sat down on the grass again, the goat roaming about near him; but he was no longer as happy with it as before.
CHAPTER II.
The goat was tethered near the house, but Oyvind wandered off, with his eyes fixed on the cliff. The mother came and sat down beside him; he asked her to tell him stories about things that were far away, for now the goat was no longer enough to content him. So his mother told him how once everything could talk: the mountain talked to the brook, and the brook to the river, and the river to the sea, and the sea to the sky; he asked if the sky did not talk to any one, and was told that it talked to the clouds, and the clouds to the trees, the trees to the grass, the grass to the flies, the flies to the beasts, and the beasts to the children, but the children to grown people; and thus it continued until it had gone round in a circle, and neither knew where it had begun. Oyvind gazed at the cliff, the trees, the sea, and the sky, and he had never truly seen them before. The cat came out just then, and stretched itself out on the door-step, in the sunshine.
"What does the cat say?" asked Oyvind, and pointed.